About Me

Manu Sharma New Delhi / Gurgaon, India

Since mid 2006 I have grappled with climate change and what it means for us. As an activist and campaigner, I sought to learn and simultaneously, attempted to influence the issues surrounding it - in technology and policy advocacy. As a consultant, I studied markets and created portfolios in sustainability services and renewable energy investment.

After thousands of hours of research, tenacious activism, working up-close with NGOs as well as the industry, delivering about two dozen public talks, countless conferences, hundreds of online discussions, a few media appearances (including Reuters, News Television, and BBC radio), and continuous evolution of my own ideas about what ought to be done - I may have found some answers but the issue remains far from being addressed.

In the despair filled world of climate change the only place I've found real and lasting hope is in a beautiful vision inspired by "The Ringing Cedars of Russia" book series by Vladimir Megre. The books have triggered a transition movement in Russia and have profoundly influenced me. I am now working towards the vision.

Climate Revolution Initiative, an RTI campaign I founded and ran for a few years is now retired. I no longer deliver talks. I still consider myself an activist though and occasionally post on Green-India group started over nine years ago.

Older entries in this blog relate to my former occupation in user experience design; long time interest in business innovation, strategy, ethics; and venture creation.

Image on top of this bar is courtesy book covers of The Ringing Cedars series published under Croatian translation. (Source)

November 19, 2004

What Makes a User Experience Designer?

It's tremendously hard to write about yourself. I've been on Orkut for a while but never came around to writing the about me section until now. Since Orkut is a social network, it makes sense to address the first question people usually ask when they meet someone new. "So what do you do?"

It's not easy to describe the User Experience profession but what if you had the chance to write an earnest response that would explain what you really do. Capturing its depth as well as its breadth and still being understandable to someone who isn't aquainted with the profession. And without sounding like an amateur to someone who lives and breathes user experience.

This is not the description of the profession. It describes how I work or would like to work. This is what I do.

I'm a user experience designer for the web. I analyse and design how websites behave. I love thinking about everything in terms of problems, needs, opportunities and solutions. What gets me excited is identifying big, gnarly problems no one has identified or addressed before. And solving them... sometimes in unexpected ways.

User experience, in the context of web, is all the stuff you see and interact with on a website and the things you feel when you do. More simply, it's how the website behaves. I design this behaviour.

If all this sounds too vague... well, you could say that I'm a cross between an anthropologist and a web designer. I study how users behave on the web and I apply that knowledge in design to meet user and business goals. Though not always in that order.

On a typical day, I might find myself answering questions such as [and this is just an example], where to place a particular link on the page. What to call it. Should it be text, an image or a widget. What happens when you click it. Where do you expect it to take you. How important it is you find it. Therefore, whether to highlight or subdue it. What are the different ways of making it prominent or subdued. Will the page still work if it was removed altogether. Is there a copy built around the link. Is that copy persuasive enough. Does it need to be.

Apart from design, my work also involves thinking about strategic issues. Looking at the big picture and asking fundamental questions, like, why does this company/ product/ site/ interface/ widget exist. Whom does it serve. What problem does it solve. What's the value proposition. What do its customers/ users say they want. And what are their unexpressed needs. What's the competitive landscape like. Are there unsaid conventions/ standards in this space that everyone adheres to [perhaps without their knowledge]. How did these conventions come into existence. What were the dynamics when they first originated. Has something changed since then. What would it look like if there were no constraints of resources, technology and time.

I'm passionate about innovation. Not just for the sake of it. But to solve important problems. Though sometimes, you do not need to innovate. Sometimes all you need to arrive at a breakthrough... is to realise the obvious.

So this is what I do. I'm untrained, unqualified and inexperienced in the sense that it traditionally means to be trained, qualified and experienced in this field.